Yesterday Tim and I came out to meet up with the rest of the family. We had a birthday party for our sister Grace and niece Ruby out at a state park. We had presents, cake and fun on the sand. Tim's grandparents were checking into the hotel a little after coming back from the park. Then everyone went out for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. After dinner Tim and I got to go to Glory and soon the be Michael's home. They have such a cute house, and it's amazing to see the before pictures. They totally remodeled the house! We had a great time hanging out over there for a while sharing stories and talking about Dave Ramsey. Then we ended the night playing Apples to Apples with the rest of Tim's siblings.

Today was pretty nice and relaxing. The morning was slow, then Tim and I went to Lynchburg for lunch to eat at Chick-fil-a and to go to Lifeway Christian bookstore. After lunch we went to the YMCA with Dan, Maggie, Ruby and Titus to go swimming, and got back in time to shower and change for the groom's dinner we had up on a mountain tonight! We had a wonderful time meeting Michael's side of the family and taking lots of pictures!

Tim and I got to Virginia beach last night in time for dinner. We're having a great time hanging out with Kym and Jason and their two kids. Today for lunch they took us out to a Japanese restaurant where they cook right in front of you at the table. That's always fun, and it was Tim's first experience of that. Then we went to their store, Mister Jewelry and Jason cleaned my wedding band and engagement ring. I didn't realize how much it needed it until I saw it finished. Wow it looks great! We have a little more time here before we leave in the morning to meet up with Tim's side of the family and start all the wedding festivities. It's fun to hear all kinds of stories of Tim's family while he was growing up.

I just accepted a job today that starts the morning we get back from Virginia. Actually, if we weren't going out of town I would have a couple meetings to go to and start a day early. I am nervous about this, so it doesn't help to know that I am missing out of some information that would help me with my position, so I would really appreciate a lot of prayers!

I will be working at the high school as a special ed paraprofessional. This was actually my last choice of what I wanted to do in the school district, but I can already hear God telling me He can teach me many things (probably including patience) and that I will be a good fit for this as long as I let God do all the work through me. I will be working about 6 1/2 hours a day. My day will start at 10am on a regular morning and end around 4:30 after I help on the bus route.

Tim and I are fixin' to get on the road to go to David and Adrienne's. Then in the morning we fly out to VA with the other Schmoyers in MN, then Tim and I are driving to Virginia Beach, then Friday we'll meet back up with Tim's side of the family for all the wedding festivities. Then Tuesday we'll fly home and I'll start work Wednesday morning.

Along with praying for my willingness to listen and be stretched with this job and the ability to do what is needed, also pray that I wont let it stress me out during vacation so I can relax and enjoy everything.

I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging if any while we're gone. I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about when we get back though! You can follow me on Twitter while we're gone though and see what we're doing throughout each day.

I have a way distant cousin who is competing in the Olympics for Women's Mountain Bike Cross Country. The race was postponed due to rain, so she should be racing Saturday 23rd at 10am. Which Central time is at 9pm Friday 22nd. Gould will be in the 1st line up. Don't miss it!

When I say way distant I mean it. We're related through my great great great great great grandparents. If you're in the More clan you have a number that we all can keep in touch with and know how we're related. Georgia's number is 32611341 and mine is 8572742.

Tim has been recording every single Olympic event, and I'm really looking forward to watching a cousin compete.

Georgia has also been blogging while she's over in Beijing. It's pretty fun to read what all she is doing each day. Check out her blog.

If I haven't jogged or biked in a day I feel so lazy! I'm not sure if it's possible, or if it's even happened, but I think I might be addicted to working out, or maybe just the feeling of being healthy. I highly doubt that I'm addicted to working out because it feels like such a chore to do, but then I love how I feel afterwards. Kinda weird. I worked out Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I skipped it Monday because I cleaned the house all day long and still felt like I got a work out. And today I haven't worked out because it's been super windy outside all day and now it's dark. My knees don't enjoy jogging anymore, so I'd rather bike, but it's killer to bike when it's windy. If it's still windy in the morning I'll have to jog instead 'cause we have company coming to stay that will be here a little after lunch. Then hopefully I'll get myself up early Saturday before our training too.

Here's a few tools I use for working out:

www.mapmyrun.com David, my brother-in-law showed me this, which I really like to use. Mainly just to keep track of what days I work out. But it'll calculate your calories if you put in your miles and time when you work out.

The Biggest Loser Fitness Plan - this link and exercises are different than the ones in the book I'm using, but I'm sure you could put all these together into a good circuit.Crunch Fat Burning Pilates, Crunch Burn and Firm Pilates and Crunch Pick Your Spot Pilates:These three videos I really enjoy. They give you a challenge, but not one of those where you quit half way through. My favorite is the Fat Burning Pilates. Right after doing the 45 minute workout I feel great. When you do it for the very first time be ready to feel a bit of soreness 'cause it gives you a great workout! What sold me on all three of these videos is the trainer, Ellen Barrett. She is a nice calm trainer who isn't one of the bubbly annoying ones I'm use to seeing that you get frustrated with how much fun and excitement their having when you feel like you're dying doing the same thing.

Yesterday our neighborhood through a cook-out/kid's bike parade thing for all of us neighbors to meet each other. I am so glad they did this because ever since we moved here I've thought it'd be fun to do something like that, and I didn't have to plan it! :)

Tim and I didn't know until about an hour before it started that we'd be able to, so we ate dinner before heading over, and just spent our time meeting everyone we live around.

We already know 4 families in our church that are right in our neighborhood, but this was a great opportunity to see everyone we constantly pass by when we're out for a walk or a jog. Most of the families are pretty young too. There were probably 4 that are older. Tim and I are probably the youngest in our neighborhood, but a lot of these people are still having babies, so they're close enough to our age.

I love meeting new people, but I was actually really nervous to go to the get-together. Tim actually did most of the talking and I just tagged along behind him. We had a great time, hopefully this will open the door of a lot more get-togethers. I haven't talked to Tim, but I'd love to do a sledding day at our house and invite the neighbors over this winter.

Tonight during Soul Fuel for our high school students my attention was brought to a small quirk/plus with Tim being a youth pastor. I bought an exercise ball a while ago and it has always stayed in our living room. Tonight I was wondering if we had a nice house like my parents, or most people their age, their living room would be too nice to always keep the exercise ball in there. But at our house it serves as a favorite chair to the youth when they're at our house! I just thought that was funny and had to share. Plus I think if I had to move it out of the room when I wasn't using it, I probably wouldn't use it. Just yesterday while doing a puzzle I used the ball to roll around to whatever side of the table I was at. It's pretty much more of a chair or toy than anything else, but at least when using it for that I get better exercise than just plopping down on the couch (which I like to do too!)

Maddie, Kallie, Brittany and Becca on Thunder Canyon. We did this ride 2nd to last and Brittany and I got the most soaked on our 2 rafts! It was a wet ride home.

Tim and I at the Twins game.

Most, Unbelievable, Ultimate, Urban, Camping, Experience.

The name of MUUUCE really lived up to it's name this year for me. Last year was great being our first time to do a weekend trip with the jr. high at our church, but this year was so much more amazing. God really used the weekend for me to get to know students better, and I am so thankful that God made opportunities for that.

It all started on the bus ride down to the cities less than 5 minutes on the road. I noticed one girl on the trip who I saw every Wednesday night at The Journey but never talked to because of the girls she hangs around, and I just don't know how to relate to them. My mistake, I assumed she was just like them. I am glad to say that I am wrong. She was sitting on the bus alone not talking to anyone, so I asked if I could sit with her, and we started talking about all sorts of things! I was blown away! She didn't really know anyone on the trip, knew who a couple of the other students were, but didn't know them more than a familiar face.

When we got to Faith Covenant and were hanging out at the inflatables I made sure this girl was hanging out with people. I am very impressed with the girls in my small group that went for including someone new into their circle of friends and making her feel welcome.

That evening at Waterpark of America I got to know another girl in our church better, and her friend. I guess I took a while changing into my swimsuit because I couldn't find anyone afterwards. I walked around the waterpark for a little bit looking for anyone, and finally found 2 of our youth girls. I spent the whole evening hanging out with them doing all the slides they wanted to do. Such fun girls!

On Friday we went to Valley Fair. Tim and I pulled together 2 groups of friends to walk around with. We had the biggest combined group from our church walking around. I was thrilled to see the two different friendship circles mesh really well together. It took about one ride until everyone started talking and intermingling. Praise Jesus! Then at lunch we had 3 boys who are brand new coming into the youth group hang out with us. One of them loved all the rides, and the other two wouldn't go on any. Once again the girls totally amazed me and were willing to do a repeat ride that we were able to talk to boys into going on, and then did another easy ride for them.

I am go thankful that God had me go on the weekend trip with the junior highers. I forget how much I love that age and how fun and goofy they are. They're really gullible too! Okay, one more story...

Friday night at the Twins game (Twins won!) we just got in the doors and were waiting for everyone else to gather up so we could find seats together, there was a guy from the host church with us that told some of the boys they had to read all the fine print on the back of their ticket before going in. They weren't really believing that, but wondering if it was true, until I added that they would have to sign something when they sit down saying that they read all of it. Immediately the boys bow their head and start reading the fine print! I watched for a couple seconds then stopped them laughing hysterically letting them know we were joking. They were good for many laughs throughout the weekend and so much fun to hang out with and get to know!

Tim and I had a short time in the afternoon to go down to Saint Cloud and do a little bit of shopping between his conference call at noon and church meeting at 5:30. We needed a nice outfit for him for Glory's wedding, and I needed to buy Glory a fun gift! :) We had a little bit of time before we needed to be back in time for Tim's meeting so we stopped by Verizon and checked out their phones. The battery life on my old phone has been poor for a while, in fact in May we stopped in and they gave us a brand new battery for it, which the last few days has been only lasting me about 5 hours before giving the high pitch beep that it's dying.

We didn't have a lot of time in Verizon to decide what we wanted to do, and there were a lot of people shopping around. So we went ahead and decided which phone I wanted depending on price. We were up for our new every 2 which gave us $50 off of the phone, and this phone also had a $50 mail-in-rebate, so when I get reimbursed it'll cost me a total of $3 for the tax. Pretty nice! Pray that it wont get lost in the mail, 'cause it'll come out of my blow money.

I think we were pretty easy customers for the lady that worked with us since we already knew what we wanted. But we were also not budging when she tried to sell us all the different packages for the phone. It was simple, we don't have the money.

Tim and I have been playing around with it. I can take video which is a first for me, and the camera on it is nicer. Tomorrow we leave for a weekend with our jr. highers for lots of fun down in the cities. I'll probably be taking lots of pictures and video just for fun! :)

Kathryn and Laura (2 of Tim's childhood friends) and Tim and I eating out at On the Border in the Dallas area. One of my favorite Mexican food restaurants!

My first snocone from a sno-cone stand since moving to Minnesota. I was looking forward to this moment for a while. :) Banana-colada with cream. Yummm!

The Minters. Tim and I spent the night with them our first night of vacation. This family has been there for me for almost mine and Tim's whole relationship. Debra (the mom) has been with me through so much. She means so much to me being a friend of faith.

Sarah! And her baby boy in the belly! :) My favorite friend from my college days. I am so blessed for God introducing us and having us be accountable to each other in our walks with God while we were single. She is such an amazing friend! I am so glad we got to visit.

The youth and a couple leaders from Redeemer (our last church). We had a good time visiting and eating out (Mexican again). So many of them have grown up tons since we last saw them!

We had the senior high students over last night for Bible study. Had 6 come to hang out, a good number for random summer events. I really enjoyed seeing the youth again, it feels like it's been a while. After Bible Study we had one girl (in my small group!) stay a little later with her Mom to visit since we haven't seen each other in a while. Then my friend Amanda came over to return our bike rack and to visit for a little bit. Everyone was out of the house pretty late, and then I got online to check email and stuff.

When I was about to go to sleep Tim asked if I wanted to help him make the video of a free give-away drawing he was doing for his blog. I was tired, but excited to be a part of his online ministry...here's the video:http://www.vimeo.com/1469494

We slept in this morning, but I still forced myself to get up and do my Biggest Loser circuit training then my 3 mile jog. Then I finally had my first meal of the day at 11:30. I made a real tasty omelette with egg whites, tomatoes, orange pepper, white and purple onions and cheese. Yumm!

My body has gone through a lot in the last week since I started doing the circuit training. And on Sunday we had wake 'n ski which my back and shoulders are completely sore from. Tim and I both tried wake boarding and wake surfing for the first time and got up! I didn't last too long, but I was impressed that I learned how to get up and stay up for a little bit. That's a big accomplishment in itself!

I've used the excuse of living in Minnesota and having to be cooped up inside for long enough. I was so excited when the snow melted the first time here and went for a jog. The snow came back and I had to take a break and wait for it to melt again, and then again. I have really enjoyed jogging, but I noticed I hit a plateau. I bought The Biggest Loser book from Target and figured if I learned something about fitness and nutrition that should help. It helped Tim and I financially when we read a book about that.

I was excited and proud of myself while reading The Biggest Loser, and kept up my jogging. While on vacation I finished the book with the last chapter on the success stories of those who were on the show. I was shocked to read about the girls who weigh more than me but are fitting into smaller clothes. Come to find out I can't just do cardio, I have to do a total body work out and work on my muscle which will then help burn more calories when I do cardio.

Their total body workout only takes about 20 minutes, but it is killer! I did it 3 days in a row hating to have to walk up and down our stairs when I needed, and I didn't sleep well 'cause every time I moved I was in pain! Today was actually the first day since I started, that I walked down the stairs without hurting. What a nice feeling! After doing the routine for 2 days I told myself I'd give my muscles a break, but I could actually see a change physically and decided to do the routine again right before jogging. Wow that was a good work-out!

So that's been going good, and I've been able to ride my bike twice this last week, once with Amanda, and then yesterday with Tim and Amanda and her family. I even pulled Amanda's 2 kids in their trailer behind me.

I'm really enjoying being active. I am nervous about when the snow comes again this year. But I hope I have a long time until then. Our high today is 79, which is a great temperature to get out and do stuff. If the rain will hold out Tim and I are going skiing with the youth group on our lake. Should be fun!